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Home invasion shocks neighborhood

Monday’s home invasion and shooting in Oakwood has left Raleigh’s downtown neighborhoods in shock. It has also shocked me as well. This took things to a new level and as good as the Raleigh Police Department is, there was little they could’ve done to stop it. As the saying goes, shit just got real.

Fortunately, the perps picked the wrong neighborhood to mess with. Oakwood is as close-knit as neighborhoods come, and residents spotted the suspects immediately. Brothers Shabar Marshall and Jahaad Marshall were arrested shortly afterward.

I learned this morning that the rumored neighborhood home invasion did, in fact, occur. A neighbor shared the details today and this previous crime was just as scary as the one this week. The evening of November 19th, a burglar broke into a home on Wake Forest Road in Mordecai and held the daughter at gunpoint there for 10 minutes while he looked for cash. The suspect escaped before anyone was hurt but it shook the family up so much that they moved away. No mention of this incident was made in the media, nor did RPD make any announcements. If it weren’t for the chat I had with the man at the local restaurant over the holidays I wouldn’t have known about it at all.

The good news is that the victim of the previous home invasion believes that Shabar Marshall was the perpetrator of the previous crime. He’s now behind bars, but for many neighbors that’s not good enough. This serious escalation deserves an escalated response from the community. The question is, what do we do?